


He Said, She Said

by scarlettblythe



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 13:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlettblythe/pseuds/scarlettblythe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt I think was on Tumblr a million years ago:<br/>So by my count Danny has told Mindy he loves her three times, but she hasn't yet reciprocated. Someone give me Danny trying to get her to say it without seeming like the kind of needy mess who has to hear it.</p><p>Whoever posted that, I thank you! Begins straight after 3x01 and continues from there on some kind of timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Said, She Said

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this after 3x01 or 02, and then dropped it when my writer's block for Act One dissipated. But in honour of all my lovely ladies continuously complaining about my Angst Problem, I give you this unbeta'd mess of something-like-Castellano-pain.

Danny could never get her to admit it, but Mindy snored. Some nights they were earth-shaking, grandfather snores, like she’d only half-swallowed her bedtime pastry and was choking on the flakes in her sleep. He’d woken up scared for her more than once. Mostly, though, they were soft snuffles, small catches in her breathing. Those nights, if he woke - he slept soundly these days - he would watch her, curled towards him, head buried in her pillow and nose twitching like a bunny. Every once and a while she would murmur and he would strain to make out her words, desperate to hear her dreams. He wondered why it was that for someone with no filter, he still had so little idea what she was feeling that he was hanging on sleeptalk for unfettered access to her thoughts.

 

Tonight was one of those nights. He shook his head at the role reversal, because while sex made Mindy crash into deep, unshakeable sleep, it left him wired. He was full of adrenaline, leftover from the courage he’d had to dredge up to do that striptease. He smirked at the memory of Mindy shoving her glasses on as he strutted into her bedroom. One thing was for sure: she wasn’t pretending not to like his ‘weird body’ anymore. He’d have to remind her of that in the morning.

 

She snorted, hiccuped. He pushed some hair back from where it was tangled across her cheek, sweeping it behind her ear. A little caught under her chin and he could tell it pulled by the crease that formed between her eyebrows. That crease was a little too familiar to him by now. He knew it from every time she’d accused him of being an old man, every time she’d taken offence at something he said. Every time he’d stolen a patient. That sparked a grin in him and he rolled onto his back. One hand behind his head, he contemplated the ceiling.

 

The truth was, he couldn’t get the last time he’d seen it out of his head. Tonight, when it became so clear to him that she didn’t trust him yet. He’d been trying so hard, since Andy, since the Empire State Building, but it was like he was never going to get through that last wall she’d put up against him. Maybe it just wasn’t in her to forgive him. Maybe he didn’t deserve it to begin with. If she never loved him back, he knew whose fault that would be.

 

And dammit, he was trying. He felt the frustration rising, a familiar feeling where Mindy was concerned. He’d straight up told her he loved her, hadn’t he? Not once, but  - Jesus, it had to be three times by now. More, if she heard everything he mumbled involuntarily when he spilled himself inside her. She had to know. He’d told her at the top of the Empire State Building, for Christ’s sake. It was literally out of one of those damn movies she was always watching.

 

“Danny?” Her voice was thick with sleep, her hand reaching out to grasp limply at his t-shirt.

“Yeah, babe?” He rolled back into her, one hand on her hip, the other curling around her head to play with her hair. She buried her nose in his chest and inhaled, her chest expanding to push into him. He could feel her grin, feel her mouth open and her teeth nip at him, pulling at his shirt.

“Hey, what are you playing at?”

“Thought you liked it when ladies take off your clothes with their teeth.”

“Ladies?” His voice was gruff but full of laughter.

Her eyes shot open and she looked up at him, scowling, one hand reaching up to poke him solidly in the chest. “No. No ladies. One. One lady for you, perv.”

“One. Swear to God.” He pressed a kiss to her hair, massaging the back of her neck. He could feel her slipping back into sleep, her grip on him loosening ever so slightly. The snuffles started again, but for once he didn’t have to strain to hear her murmur.

“My Diamond Dan only does private shows.”

 

Her Diamond Dan. His pulse quickened, and he felt the sweat on his brow. He strained to hear anything else, hoping against hope she’d keep talking, but all he could hear were the snores.

 

Hers. It wasn’t what he needed. But it was a start.

 

****  
  


Catching the subway with her was still his favourite time of day. It wasn’t often that their morning train had two seats spare, something Mindy didn’t see as a problem. She was an unrepentant lap-sitter, but as far as Danny was concerned they had to draw a line somewhere, and making out like horny teenagers between a woman who looked like his grandmother and a man hocking his spit into a can was definitely his line. Most of the time.

 

So more often than not, he found himself with one arm around the pole in the middle of the train and the other tucking her into him, while she smiled up at him and chattered about the Real Housewives of Somewhere or Other. Her fingers would walk up his chest, adjust his collar, idly follow the curve of his neck to tug on his earlobe, sweep down to his lips to brush away an imaginary crumb. Her casual tactile exploration every morning soothed him, and the smile in her eyes as she did it lulled him into a kind of hypnosis. More than once he’d found himself agreeing to something completely outrageous, like Mindy’s insistence on practice support for “a woman’s right to choose her breakfast pastries”. (Had she even eaten breakfast before they left? He’d have to make sure they stopped somewhere on the way to the office, or she’d make Morgan cry by mid-morning.)

 

She was looking up at him expectantly, and clearly he’d missed a question.

“Sorry, Min, what?”

“You loser. Distracted by my hot bod?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Awww, Danny! But don’t get too into it, we don’t need a repeat of last time.” She raised her eyebrows and looked down at the fly of his jeans. “Know what I mean?”

“Mindy, keep it down!”

“What? That was subtle! I didn’t even mention the - ”

“Okay, that’s enough.” He put a hand over her mouth. “Thank God this is our stop.” He walked her backwards to the door, letting her go for long enough to navigate her own way out of the carriage.

“No, but Danny, I mean it! I was trying.” She stood on the platform, grasping the lapels of his jacket. Her eyes were earnest, pleading.

“That was the worst attempt at subtlety I have ever seen.”

“Well, actually, I think yesterday when I told everyone about Diamond Dan was the worst attempt at subtlety you’ve ever seen, but - Sorry. I’m sorry. Danny?”

He exhaled, looking up to the ceiling, habit making him automatically pray for the patience to survive Hurricane Mindy.

“I can do this, Danny. I’m getting better.”

She was so damn _frustrating_.

“Hey. Hey! I promise.”

 

The worry in her voice made him look back down at her face. Her eyes were wide, fearful, and he felt a kick in his gut for making her mistrust this, him, all over again.

“I know, Mindy.” He sighed, rubbing one hand roughly down his face. “You can do this. That was… that was actually not bad.”

“Yeah?” That smile of hers burst across her face and lit up his whole world. He couldn’t help but grin back.

“If I was grading on a very extreme curve? Solid C+. You’re doing great, Min.”

“Danny!” She slapped him lightly on the chest. “I’ll take it.” She stretched up to pepper apology kisses over his face. “Just give me ten years, and maybe I can get it to a B.”

“Ten years, huh?”

 

He found himself battling the need to ask her what that ten years would look like. How many children would they have - did she still want nine girls? Because she could have them, all of them, if only she’d tell him that sometime in that ten years she could love him. The words were clawing their way up his throat, unbidden, promising to either expose him or choke him and he swallowed them, hard. This wasn’t the time.

 

There was a bright smile on her face as she slipped her arm through his and listed in great detail all the things she wasn’t going to tell Peter about last night. It helped dispel the bubble of words cramping his stomach a little. Still, the bubble sat there, smaller but not dissipated, a promise for next time.

 

***

“Danny, Mindy, you’re here! Thank God. Peter is off sick and I’m swamped with his patients.”

“He’s off sick?” Danny asked, raising his eyebrows.

Jeremy looked up from his paperwork and exhaled in annoyance. “Yes, Danny, he called this morning and told Beverley he was indisposed.”

Danny looked at Beverley, who winked theatrically. “Oh, yeah, Dr. Reed. I could hear him upchuck through the phone. It was disgusting. I told him, a little of my moonshine will have him right as rain, but he wasn’t interested once I told him I make it in a set of old chamberpots.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes and groaned, shutting the file he was reading with a snap. “Thank you, Beverley, for once again proving why this practice is never featured in any journal of repute.”

Tamra wandered out to the reception area. “Dr. Reed, can you unlock Dr. Prentice’s office for me so I can use his computer? I need to finish editing my vlog entry about how you stole his girlfriend and all and the computer in phlebotomy is like, older than Katie Holmes.”

“You are all the bane of my existence.” Jeremy stormed into his office.

“I need to post it before my cousin Bea posts about the fight at her wedding. Wedding drama gets way more views than work drama, I need the head start!”

“The _bane!”_ Jeremy shouted, and slammed his door.

 

“So Peter is throwing up? Did he say why?” Danny ignored Tamra’s grumbling in favour of interrogating Beverley.

“Aw, nah, he’s not. But when he called I couldn’t hear him talk through the sobbing so I figured he deserved a Heartache Day, even if Dr. Reed still won’t recognise them.”

“Beverley! That was very kind of you!” Mindy was genuinely surprised. “The kindest thing you’ve ever done for me was that time you got me drunk off a 40 on my birthday.”

“I know! And my moonshine is _much_ better than a 40.”

“That I do not doubt. Mostly because that 40 was the grossest thing I have ever consumed. And I once ate my ex-boyfriend’s hair to seal a curse.”

Danny looked at her a moment, perturbed, then shook his head, clearing away the image. “Poor Pete,” he said ruefully. “He said he was in love with her, didn’t he?”

“Right. And he bought her, like, an $8,000 tiara. If that isn’t proof of love, I don’t know what is.” Mindy looked wistful for a moment.

Morgan poked his head out of phlebotomy. “Don’t worry, Dr. C. I’ll find you a tiara for Dr. L. by the end of the day.”

“Morgan, don’t - that’s not necessary, okay. Mindy, she knows… I mean - why are you always eavesdropping?” Danny could feel the tips of his ears burning.

“Morgan, stop terrifying Danny.” Mindy took his hand and kissed him on the cheek, nuzzling into him.

“Too late! I already found one. If he doesn’t want it for you Dr. L., would you like it for Dr. C.? The sparkle against his dark hair? Divine.”

“I think I’ll be fine, Morgan. Anyway, if I wanted to prove to Danny how much I loved him, I’d buy him another one of those gross old stadium seats.”

 

Danny’s heart stopped. He turned to stare at her. She’d already moved on, grinning and gesturing animatedly with her free hand, talking to Tamra about ways to bump workplace drama above wedding drama in the viewability stakes. Her other hand squeezed his subconsciously, thumb rubbing over his.

 _She didn’t mean it like that_ , he told himself, trying to talk himself down. _It’s all just hypothetical, a game. Like that time she used Photoshop to compare whether her babies with Michael Fassbender or Anderson Cooper would be cuter._

Still, he found himself staring, trying to memorise the way her hair curled, tucked behind her ear, or the slight smudge of her lipstick after nuzzling his cheek. She looked up at him, wiping the fuschia stain from his cheek with a giggle, and dragged him into her office, throwing something over her shoulder to Tamra about it being “Brown Sugar Time.”

 

Her door was locked and her lips on his before he’d even worked out where they were, and it took a second for him to catch up, for the flowery scent of her perfume to hit his nose and tangle with the feeling of her lips working their way around to his ear. He shuddered, his hands instinctively settling on her waist, fingers contracting to pull her closer. He felt her smile against his throat and he could see it, see the curve of her lips, the smug grin that meant she was thinking she was the boss. Normally he’d deny it, take charge, push her against the door and claim her, but today it was all he could do just to hold on to her. Today she was right. Every day she was right.

 

She stopped, pulling back to gaze up at him.

“Everything okay, Danny?” She threaded her fingers through his hair, kneading his scalp for a moment.

“You love me.” He felt a brief flicker of pride: he’d managed to make it a statement, not a question.

“You love me,” she flirted, looking up at him through her eyelashes. She stretched up to his lips again, but he put his hand up to her mouth. She kissed it with a grin.

“Mindy,” he croaked. “Mindy, you said you love me.”

She sighed, detaching herself from him with one last kiss on the cheek. He watched her walk towards the door, shoving her arms through the sleeves of her white coat. She paused at the threshold, reaching back to release her hair from under the collar.

“I know it’s scary for you to hear it, Danny. I get it. But sometimes it’s going to slip out.”

His mouth fell open. “Scary? It’s not - I’m not -”

“No, of course.” She held up a hand to still him. “You’re very manly and don’t get scared.”

“No, that’s not - this isn’t -”

 

Frustration seized him. It had been too long, too many months with words choking him, refusing to come out like he wanted them to. It shouldn’t be this hard. And as she smiled at him, so sweetly, with so much understanding, it hit him that it wasn’t hard at all. One step or five, he found himself with her, arms winding around her, forehead resting on hers like he could sink into her. For the first time in years, his lungs were free and he gulped in a breath.

 

“Mindy, do you love me?”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to go differently, but as I was writing it it occurred to me that this was Danny's story, not Mindy's, and that the ending needed to be about him. I HOPE YOU CAN FORGIVE ME.


End file.
